Safe House (Daniel Espinosa, USA, 2012)

There is a very marked disillusionment with politics and the world in the better American films of the moment; Safe is a good example. It presents a world where no one is to be trusted, nothing is what it seems, and ‘idealist’ is another name for patsy. The film has an interesting look: the image is too white but also high contrast and slightly grainy. Cape Town has never looked uglier, even the beach scenes. However, it is nice to see a thriller set in Cape Town and the film makes very good use of its locations: one gets a sense of pent-up danger amidst a world not completely known, slightly sleazy and with aspects of developing world infrastructure overlaid with cutting-edge technology. I was lured to the film because it was publicized as Denzel Washington playing a villain but it’s a ‘villain’ as played by a star, i.e. one understands him, the rationale for his actions, and really, he’s the only person with integrity in the agency (aside from the second-ranking star, Ryan Reynolds). Reynolds is the revelation here; with enormous close-ups of him crying, wetting those lovely lower lashes he’s got, a face that seems slightly freckled but worn, the no-longer boyish face of someone in the process of losing his innocence. The telephone sequences with between him and his girlfriend are truly moving and he gives a fully-fledged star performance: he makes you understand, empathise and feel with him. I’ve never quite been taken in by Sam Shepard’s charm; he’s tended to get by on laid-back nonchalance — which sometimes seems like sheer not-giving-a-damn — and handsomeness made palatable by being less than pretty; here he’s definitely cast as the usual WASP prototype but seems to bring something more to it than he usually does; grasping, calculating deceit laced with gravitas (though my mind was mainly focused on how much he’d aged). Ruben Blades appeared and the sound of his voice alone made me happy. I was sad to see him killed. A good thriller.